AI OD: How to fix The Idol

I get that American Idol is a ratings juggernaut, but come on! In the first few seasons we got a couple weeks or so of these good and bad early round auditions and then it was off to the races, but now we get a solid month. A sprint of fun turned into a marathon. Thank god they spotlighted more of the good singers this year than last, but it's still way way too long! I was ready to move on to Hollywood by week three. And we get one episode of "Hollywood Week" and then the infamous "Chair" episode that reveals the Top 24.

These kids are in Hollywood for a solid week. They call it "Hell Week." It's rife with personal drama, tons of practice and work every day. There's over 100 of the so-called "good" contestants struggling to make a good impression with most of them failing miserably. Lots of attitude and emotions. And this year they get to perform with instruments. Why don't you give me some more time on that? It's okay, though. I've figured out how to fix the whole thing.

Ratings each year have shown that viewers tend to slip away as these round one auditions drag on only to start returning when the voting starts with the Top 24. Wouldn't you think the folks at Idol would want to try and correct this? Why be satisfied with a negative ratings pattern year after year? Luckily it is easily corrected. In the first season, all the early buzz for the whole show was about those horrible auditions because nothing like that had really been done before. It was funny and hilarious and helped put Idol on the map.

But after seven seasons, we've seen just about every variation of bad singer and judge's response there is, so we certainly don't need to spend the first month of each season with them. Idol visits seven cities for two days each (on average). This could be covered in two to three weeks of two hour episodes; you can easily cover three to three and a half cities in a week.

First, cut out all the filler and background crap on the singers and move through the auditions faster. Let me explain why. When you give us background story information on the bad singers, it's pointless. Take the most recent example from "The Best of the Rest" episode. The whole Three's Company schtick. The story was stupid and all three contestants were terrible. The only thing it had going for it was they were good-looking and the girl's line to Simon that if he put her through to Hollywood he could have anything he wanted. Did we need extra footage of them posing and being goofy outside? How much time did we waste on that story and in the end it is completely inconsequential. Meanwhile, there are singers who will make the Top 24 we still haven't even seen.

As for the good singers, one of the biggest complaints contestants have after we get to the Top 24 is that "so-and-so got more face time before we got to Hollywood, so America 'knows' them better and that's why I got voted out." You know what? There's some truth to that. Let's face it, we are going to remember people who've gotten more camera time and who've had some of their back-story revealed. Who remembers Asiah? But each year there are several people who make the Top 24 and the first time we ever even see their faces on the show or hear them sing is when we start voting. That's not right.

This year's "Hollywood Week" happened several weeks ago now and the folks behind the Idol machine already know who's in the Top 24, right? Okay, now that we've trimmed "Round One" to two or three weeks, we're ready for Phase Two. Two weeks on "Hell Week," three of the contestants wrapped up with the "chair" episode. There are over 100 contestants in Hollywood and 24 of them are going to become our Top 24. By the time these episodes air, producers already know the Top 24, so it behooves them to ensure all 24 of those people get at least some face time with the home audience. It gives them an opportunity to show the audience at home why they made the Top 24, and the audience at home more options of people to get excited about and tune in for.

So as to not give the Top 24 away, you show a whole bunch more of the people who almost make it, too. I can promise you that America won't be mad. In fact, they'll get even more enthusiastic about it because they'll know they've seen the entire Top 24 throughout the "Hell Week" episodes and the fun will be in trying to guess which ones will make it. Then when we do get to the "chair" episode you don't have to make an effort to show us in flashback sequences what John Q. Idol did before you tell him he's in the Top 24 because this is the first time we've ever seen him.

So You Think You Can Dance had a great summer run, their best one yet. Ratings were good and critics were raving. And the success it had with connecting its contestants to the audience at home was a large factor in the so-called "changes" Idol is making this year. One of the things Dance did right was show us all the great dancers before they revealed the finalists. That way when they walked out on stage to see if they were going to be on the show, we'd been on this journey with them up to this point and had an emotional stake in their fate. It's not some stranger we've never seen before.

If I'm John Q. Idol and I'm up against Danny Noriega in the first round and that night is the first time anyone's heard me sing, I'm scared to death. Ryan's little chats with me during the show are the first time anyone's heard me talk, but everyone remembers little Danny Noriega from the early round episodes and probably the Hollywood rounds. Oh, he's so cute and remember how they told us he tried out before and his little nerves got to him. Oh, let's vote for Danny. "What about John Q. Idol? He was pretty good." Who? Oh the guy with the ... yeah I don't really remember him.

It's an easy fix, it will keep the audience more interested in the entire run of the show, help the audience connect more with all of the contestants before the first vote is cast, and humanize the contestants more, too. The fans have more people to get excited about from the first voting episode and more of a connection to keep them coming back week after week. It's a brilliant solution and I should get a Pulitzer Prize for it. Or at least an Emmy? Hell, I'd settle for a Razzie.